Within the last 30 years small winches for use on sail yachts have become popular. These winches generally comprise a winch drum which can turn in only clockwise direction having radial outwardly flaring ends defining therebetween a line-receiving portion about which several turns of line may be wrapped. One end of the line is connected to a sail or other item to be pulled, then several turns of the line are wrapped around the winch drum and then pulled in a crewman's hands away from the winch. A winch handle associated with the winch is actuated by the crew to rotate the winch and pull in the sail or other item.
In view of the fact such winches require the free section of the line to be pulled while at the same time the winch handle is cranked, the use of such winches requires two hands or even two crewmen, particularly where large forces are involved. (A force of 4,000 pounds is not uncommon.) In such latter case it is customary to have one crewman act as a "tailer" and another as the "wincher." For the cruising yactsman where but two people may handle a rather large sail yacht, the use of the aforementioned winches during strong winds presents serious difficulties because of the inability and/or danger involved in one person attempting to both tail the line as well as crank the winch.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for self-tailing winches for sail yachts. A few such winches have appeared on the market but to my knowledge they either require the threading of the line into around and out of them, or they are useful with only one size line or require the winch handle associated therewith to be removed and in any event existing winches cannot be economically adapted for selftailing use. As a consequence the yachtsman wishing to utilize the commercially available self-tailing winches must discard his existing winches and in view of the high cost of marine hardware this is extremely expensive.
In my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,606, the structure requires one hand to maintain pull on the line until the other hand has engaged the pinch roller. There also exists a need for a more simple to use and quick automatic threading self-tail device, for a self-tailing device which does not require the use of two hands and for a self-tailing device the use of which is not complicated by the presence of the winch crank on the winch.